Glasgow Jazz Festival
Item Posted: Monday 10th May, 2010
Glasgow Jazz Festival
The Cowal Music Club and FiddleFolk brought the Tim Kliphuis Band to Cowal last year, and I now hear he is performing at the prestigious Glasgow Jazz Festival. The greatest living exponent of Grappelli's elegantly swinging, energetic violin style, Kliphuis trained at the Amsterdam Conservatory and first came to the jazz world's attention with gypsy guitarist Fapy Lafertin. He has since worked with Les Paul and Martin Taylor and infuses hot club swing with tango, bossa and African rhythms.
The festival has a great line up of key names from the Scottish and international jazz scene, and a jazz fringe where you will find a lot of the up and coming names.
Carol Kidd is acknowledged in jazz circles as "Britain's finest ballads singer". She has secured the Best Vocalist title at the British Jazz Awards on four separate occasions and, in 1998, received the MBE for Services to Jazz. A long line of admirers included Frank Sinatra, who invited her to open for him at a concert at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow. During his performance he commented "Carol Kidd is the best kept secret of British jazz". This endorsement from Ol' Blue Eyes gave Kidd the confidence to truly make singing her career.
Almost immediately she was invited to appear at the internationally acclaimed Ronnie Scott's Club in London. Tony Bennett was singing in London at the time and he made a point of coming to hear her stating "You are world class, where have you been?" Their endorsements were clearly on the nail, as she has picked up awards galore and ended up with a MBE for services to Jazz.
The Scottish Jazz Orchestra will perform ‘Torah’, written by Tommy Smith in 1999, for American saxophone giant Joe Lovano. The 2010 Torah recordings feature the composer as both lead soloist and director of an orchestra of outstanding talents. The music is robust, crisply written and beautifully detailed, using horns as commentators as well as supporters and a brilliant rhythm section as the dynamic base for Smith’s by turns tender and rugged but always heartfelt improvisations on strong, memorable themes. Encapsulating the first five books of the Bible in an extended jazz composition, Smith has taken the creation story common to the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths and created music that, drawing on the jazz and blues traditions and without harbouring grand ambitions of healing spiritual division, is highly approachable, stimulating and ultimately rewarding.
Another highlight of the festival will be the finals of the Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year competition, presented by the Scottish Jazz Federation and the Glasgow Jazz Festival, hosted by Stephen Duffy and broadcast live on BBC Radio Scotland’s Jazz House.
The Glasgow Jazz Festival runs from the 18th to 27th June. For more information please go to www.jazzfest.co.uk